How to Write a Good Fanfic

9.1.2 - Subtext vs. Context... Subtext Isn't Context

"Anybody who can't see this pairing is canon are in serious denial."

The words hit hard, to say the least, being told that the pairing in question was definite, despite the fact there lay within the canon material no context for said pairing. The person responded, "the pairing never happened in the show, thus it isn't canon."

"No. The pairing is clearly there, within the subtext."

...

For this particular essay I am going to discuss the pairing between Kirk/Spock in the Star Trek franchise, but also a real conversation I once had with a small group of fans for this pairing. To start off though, I'm going to flat out say not all fans of this pairing act in such a manner. I bring up the conversation because what happened illustrates the difference between context and subtext, both within canon material, but also context from real life.

The conversation in question took place on the NaNoWriMo forums two to three years ago. For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month where the goal is to write fifty-thousand words in one month. On the site are forums where people can discuss various topics, and one of the topics involved the discussion of fanfic pet peeves. This forum tends to run a high risk of getting shut down by the monitors, as there are some people out there who do not handle other people's negative opinions of something they like very well.

Every single year someone shows up claiming the pet peeves are disheartening to begin writers, as they tell a writer a ton of things they shouldn't do. This in itself is a misconception, as the pet peeves fall into two categories. The first are things which everyone knows is bad writing, like posting hot-off-the-press work the writer obviously didn't bother checking for grammar issues, but others are things the person tends to not see done well, but would like to see done better.

In this particular case though, the tension arose because of a small group of Kirk/Spock fans, leading to the forum lockdown for at least part of the month, if not the entire month. I'm sure the fans of the pairing feel the forum got locked down because of naysayers against their pairing and others not being open to their pairing, but in reality the reason for the lock down lay in the fact they were not open to others.

Specifically, remember the short story at the beginning of the essay?

Something like that really happened. While I can't remember the exact words used, one of the fans very rudely stated that anyone who couldn't see that their pairing was canon based on the subtext within the show was delusional, as the homoerotic subtext within the show was that obvious. Someone also brought in historical subtext, claiming a certain part of history contained a homoerotic subtext as well. In fact, this person claimed that subtext has, within an argument, the same validity as context, which in reality it does not.

A bit more on that in a bit. I wish to make clear again that not all Kirk/Spock shippers act this way. In fact, my first experience with said ship were essays posted to the Fanfic Symposium. I am also able to say I was quite unaware of the homoerotic subtext within the original series until I read the essay, but I found myself convinced that Kirk/Spock contained a valid standing because of these essays. Was I then in denial because I couldn't see the homoerotic subtext?

Hands down, no I wasn't. In the first place, I'm not the type of person to intentionally go looking for homoerotic subtext. I don't intentionally go looking for shipping subtext at all. I personally think people should avoid going into shows searching for any kind of subtext actually, as I honestly believe purposefully going out of one's way to find a particular type of subtext amounts to wishful thinking. The reason I say this is because almost anything can be interpreted based on subtext as leaning towards a specific subtext should a person so choose, and going in looking for something means you've already formed a particular bias.